MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Science? In MY Kitchen? It’s More Common Than You Think!

BEGINNING
Discuss how baking is a miracle of transformation- like sculpting, turning raw ingredients (flour, water, yeast, sugar) into well-formed structure, with amazing possibilities for flavor, textural differences.

PATHOS
Appeal to audience sense of wonder, as well as nostalgia/sense memory that baked goods can evoke.

Argue that understanding the biological and chemical basis of these transformations is worth knowing for its own sake, but also will empower bakers to make better decisions while following a recipe.
“I will be unraveling the amazing processes like gluten formation, chemical and biological leavening, and browning, that you might take for granted now, but hopefully won’t once you realize just how complex and powerful they are.”

MIDDLE
Conversational-tone descriptions of science and baking techniques, interspersed with links to blogs and other sources, as well as pictures and diagrams of important particles/reactions.

LOGOS
Throughout, the middle section will reference a range of sources- industry and research studies, different food blogs, food shows and publications, and basic (student or lay-audience targeted) guides to chemistry and cell biology.

The middle section will discuss gluten (protein biochemistry, how gluten forms in dough, the autolyze method), leavening (chemical leavening, acid-base chemistry in baking soda, biological leavening via sourdough and commercial yeast), puff leavening via dough lamination (brief discussion of the contents of butter), whipped egg whites and cream (discussion of protein and fat stabilization/denaturing), and crust browning (the Maillard Reaction and the structure of simple carbohydrates).

END
Reiterate how important it is to understand the processes that underlie baking techniques. Discuss and link to other helpful sources, video series, and blogs for readers to learn more. Say “Knowledge is Flour” or something like that.

ETHOS
I am going to mimic the author blurbs at the bottom of baking articles/blogs. Discuss that I am a biology student with chem experience, as well as an avid recreational baker, most interested in pies, puff pastry and bread.

STRUCTURE
Throughout, my structure will be to illustrate concepts, then link them to baking advice.

GOAL
Educate lay audiences about scientific concepts in baking, and give bakers the knowledge to better understand why they do some of the things they do.

This sounds relish! The baking soda/baking powder caution is real. Occasionally, a quick bread like zucchini bread or even famous Irish soda bread ends up horrifically bitter! Perhaps you can explain that, too.

Glad you are enjoying this, J.